Cross-National Comparison of Gender Effects Among Business and Economics Students in Germany, Japan, and the United States

• In Event: Valid Assessment of Learning Outcomes in Higher Education: Cross-National Comparisons

Abstract

Across various domains differences in gender-specific responding to standardized test items are frequently detected. Even in assessments of economic knowledge, male participants often score higher than female participants (e.g., Owen, 2012). This recurring finding has stirred controversial discussions. While some researchers suggest that gender differences in economics assessment might be due to the use of standardized testing formats, others believe that gender differences might depend on specific features of economic knowledge (e.g. economic numeracy vs. economic literacy). However, most studies on gender effects in assessments of economic knowledge have focused on secondary education in a specific country (e.g., Authors, 2010). Thus, in the present study, we compare gender effects on economic knowledge between Germany, Japan, and the United States. The data was gathered using the standardized U.S. Test of Understanding in College Economics (TUCE, see Authors, 2007), which was also adapted and used in assessments in Germany (Authors, 2014) and Japan (Authors, 2010).
In our paper, we start with a brief overview of previous research on gender effects on economic knowledge in Germany, Japan, and the United States as well as potential explanations for gender effects on economic knowledge. Afterwards the assessment instrument and the samples from the three countries will be described and the results from the empirical analyses based on Item Response Theory (IRT) will be presented. Moreover, our analyses will also include some results on the differences of gender effects between numeracy and literacy tasks of this test. We close by critically discussing the results and identifying need for further research.

Authors

• Sebastian Brueckner, Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz

• Manuel Förster, Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz

• William B. Walstad, University of Nebraska

• Michio Yamaoka

• Tadayoshi Asano